Pora, Andreea

5 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.

Revista 22 - Romania | 07/08/2012

Ponta pushing to change outcome of referendum

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta has reshuffled his cabinet after Interior Minister Ioan Rus and Minister-Delegate for Administration Victor Paul Dobre resigned on Monday. The impeachment proceedings initiated by Ponta against President Traian Băsescu were the background to these events. With the replacements made in the reshuffle the prime minister will increase pressure on the Constitutional Court, the conservative weekly magazine Revista 22 writes: "Rus understood that this is about the recalculation of the number of entitled voters - a major infringement of the law. ... It would have destroyed his career. His resignation drives a wedge between the [social democratic] PSD and the actions of [party leader and prime minister] Ponta. Now instead of Rus we have a die-hard party soldier, Mircea Duşă, who will carry out instructions without questioning them - unlike Rus, who thinks along the same lines as Victor Dobre. The latter will be replaced by Radu Stroe. ... Duşă and Stroe will trim down the electoral lists until the [ruling alliance] the USL has the desired amount of voters and then increase the pressure on the constitutional judges."

How to shed light on the Securitate

On Sunday, several hundred people protested in Bucharest against the decision of the constitutional court declaring the existing rules for dealing with the Securitate files unconstitutional. To date, the decisions about which files would be made public were taken by an eleven-member governing council of CNSAS, the government agency responsible for dealing with the files, manned according to the parties' proportional representation in parliament. Andreea Pora comments. "In future, the issue will no longer be to shed light on the work of the Securitate, this question seems to be forgotten. Rather, it is above all about the struggle for the CNSAS archive. ... The government's sincerity regarding this project can be proven in just one way: The archive must be placed under the control of civil society, following the model of its German counterpart, not under the control of the parties. At least that must happen. Otherwise, one must consider it not only to be restoration, but a conspiracy."

Verbal attack on Romanian intellectuals

Bogdan Olteanu, head of the Romanian Chamber of Representatives, and the Agrarian Party have written an open letter accusing writers Mircea Cartarescu and Horia Roman Patapievici of 'dictatorial thinking.' Andreea Pora explains: "Patapievici wrote in an editorial that the Agrarian Party is one of the biggest disappointments, and writer Mircea Cartarescu called Chamber President Bogdan Olteanu an 'absolutely embarrassing person' – an opinion shared by 99 percent of the population. With their open letter, [Olteanau and the Agrarian Party] are trying to deprive these two intellectuals of their moral right to be the louder ones. They are trying to stigmatise their critics, not only in the eyes of the public but also among their peers. They stir up fear in the hopes that people will turn away from them in disgust… but these kinds of campaigns always backfire, as the past 18 years have shown."

Romania's ailing health system

Two years after their introduction Andreea Pora delivers a scathing judgement of the reforms in Romania's public health system. "The decentralisation measures aren't worth the paper they're written on, the nation-wide standard software was purchased without a government call for tenders and many 'feudal lords' have been forced to leave, only to return. True, there are now insurances against medical malpractice and numerous commissions, but does that really matter when women are still dying in childbirth and patients have to bring their own food and medications to the hospital. There are still two patients to a bed in some hospitals. ... All the studies support the claim that public health employees also consider the reform a failure. Around 50 percent of doctors believe the situation is worse today than it was before and 64 percent want to leave the country - which is precisely what many are doing."

Romania's Justice Minister in trouble

The Romanian parliament yesterday gave Justice Minister Monica Macovei a majority vote of no confidence. In Brussels, Macovei is regarded as a person of integrity and the most reform-minded minister in the Romanian Cabinet. Andrea Pora comments: "This is a dishonourable act against the one minister who practically enabled the country's accession and took serious measures to combat corruption. Now they want her head… What has happened basically confirms the justice minister's assertion that the political class is corrupt and doesn't want to be burdened with investigations… The vote against Monica Macovei is part of the opposition's plan to suspend President Traian Basescu. It's a 'warning signal to the president'. It's also a signal to the public: the corrupt who have incriminating files on them have woken from their hibernation and formed a cross-party brotherhood."